Return to Fanglith f-2

by John Dalmas

  Gilbert didn't look too good, or sound too good either, and I wondered if I'd zapped him. That didn't seem possible. If it hadn't killed him, it would have left him unconscious for quite a lot of hours.

  "Where is the monk called Moise?" he demanded.

  "Brother Moise? The last I knew, he was in the hall, falling off the bench from the drugged drink. Perhaps the Angel Deneen has taken him into the sky. Perhaps she will come back and take you next."

  He glared more hatred at me than my guard had, and for a moment I thought he might draw his sword and convert me into steaks or something. Instead he turned and left the room without saying anything more.

  By that time, my headache was only a shadow of what it had been. And interestingly, I was actually feeling pretty casual about the situation. I'd either be dead tomorrow or alive, and right then I wasn't all that worried or afraid. Which seemed a bit strange to me, but I wasn't going to argue with it. Instead I closed my eyes again, to rest and hopefully sleep some more.

  The next time I opened them, my guard was asleep on one of the other mattresses. The lamp had burned down to a fluttering glow. Something had wakened me, and I sat up. Looking around, I couldn't see anything that might have done it.

  Then I felt a draft, and the lamp blew out. The draft had been from the wrong direction for the window or door, and it srnelled musty. Someone or something was behind me now, I was sure of it. I could sense something there, and for a few seconds my hair felt as if it were standing up like wires. It's got to be Moise, I told myself, and the spooky feeiing passed.

  Why Moise? And how could it be him?

  Then a knife tip touched the side of my neck from behind, and callused fingers touched my face. My heart almost stopped. There was the whispered word, "Who?", in Provencal.

  I barely breathed my name.

  The hand withdrew, and the knife. "Is the other one your guard?" he whispered.

  "Yes."

  Dimly I saw my visitor slip past me toward the Norman guard, and kneel. After a minute I heard a long shuddering sigh. My visitor stood again and came over to me, "Come," he murmured. "Your guard is dead."

  Now I recognized the voice: It was Moise!

  I rolled to my knees and got up. "My hands are shackled," I whispered, "but the guard has no key."

  "We can free them later," he murmured, then took my arm and turned me around. There was an opening low in the wall, with a faint glow on the other side. Moise led me to it and we went through on hands and knees. The other side was a passage not more than three feet wide. A girl was standing back from the opening, maybe twelve or fourteen years old, holding an oil lamp. I couldn't tell what she looked like because, like most of the other women and older girls I'd seen here, she wore a cloth over her face from the cheeks down.

  Moise, still on his knees, pushed the door closed. It was mortared slabs of rock, looking like the stone blocks of the wall but split thinner. It seemed to move on some kind of bearing, maybe stone balls in rounded holes. The slight grating sound of its moving was what had wakened me.

  If it hadn't been for Moise's voice, I wouldn't have recognized him. In the lamplight, I saw that he was wearing a hooded Saracen robe and slippers.

  We got up then, and Moise said something to the girl, in Arabic I suppose. She answered him, and I followed them along the passage, A few yards farther we came to stairs that led steeply down maybe fifty or sixty steps. At the bottom the passage continued level, its ceiling low enough that I had to stoop a little. The girl stopped after maybe a hundred feet and pointed upward. Moise pushed where she pointed, and a trapdoor opened overhead. We helped each other up, and I found myself in a round room with a ceiling that barely allowed me to stand erect. The place smelled kind of like grain smells on Evdash.

  A tall, powerful Varangian was sitting there against the wall, hauberk, sword, and all. His legging was cut away from one leg, up to the knee, and his calf was bandaged. "Ketil!" I whispered, and going to him, I shook his hand awkwardly with both of mine. It seemed to me he might be the only Varangian left alive here. I realized then that he hadn't been at the banquet; in fact I hadn't seen him since we'd arrrived at the castle.

  I turned to Moise. "How did you get here?" I asked, still softly. "How did he get here? And who's the girl?"

  "Her name is Layla. She is the daughter of the Saracen who was steward of this castle. He was killed fighting the Normans; so was his master. She and her mother work here now.

  "She was told to take care of Ketil, and then the Normans apparently forgot about him. So when she heard that the Varangians had been massacred, she brought Ketil here to hide. After the battle of Misilmeri, her father showed her the hidden passageways and every hiding place. She even knows a hidden way out of the castle. Just above us is a large grain storage vault. Sometime in the past, a false floor was put in it to form this secret chamber."

  He stopped there as if that was all of it. "So how did you get out of the hall?" I asked. "And run into her?"

  "It was you who made it possible. But first I must explain that I did not even taste the drink. Then, seeing the Varangians falling drugged, I pretended to be drugged too, and let my head drop onto the table.

  Before you fell, you killed several of the Normans with your stunner. Unfortunately, Gilbert was only touched by it-he was probably ducking beneath the table as it reached him. I heard some Normans saying that Gilbert could neither move nor speak, though his eyes were open.

  "His wife took charge then, screaming orders to the knights who still lived, and the castle's foot soldiers. More orders than there were Normans to carry them out, some of them impossible or contradictory. I felt hands drag me from the room and leave me in a corridor. When I opened my eyes a slit, a minute later, there were only myself and two Normans lying there, and my belt things had been taken. So I got up and fled. I didn't know where to go, so I went outside, intending to hide in the shrubs and plan what I might do.

  "But Layla, who was going home from working in the kitchen, saw me leave and followed me. She brought me here and gave me this." He took a sheathed knife from inside his robe. "And brought me the robe as well," he added. "Then a few minutes later, she brought Ketil. I described you to her then, and told her I wanted to rescue you. And Tarel."

  "What about Tarel?" I asked.

  "He is somewhere with no hidden passage. Only three rooms open on a passage, and by luck, you were in the third of them."

  "Ask her if she can think of a way we can get to him and get him out."

  "I have. She tells me there is no way short of searching, and taking him by force."

  "Okay," I said, then examined my wrist irons. There was no lock. They'd simply been bolted, the nuts turned so tightly they'd been burred. I gestured. "Can Layla get a hammer and chisel? Now?"

  Moise turned and spoke to her in Arabic. She shook her head as she answered. "Not tonight," he told me. "She would have to go to the smithy and steal a chisel, and there will be men about, searching for me."

  Then Ketil spoke, questioning, and Moise answered in Greek. Next Moise said something in Arabic to Layla, who nodded, raised the trapdoor, and stood waiting, looking at him.

  "What?" I said.

  "Ketil has an idea for freeing you. We will go and bring something, Layia and I." Then they left, the trapdoor closing behind them.

  Ketil and I sat waiting for quite a while, neither of us saying anything. Ketil looked as if I wasn't there, as if he were alone with his thoughts. Grim thoughts. His two-handed sword was in his fists now, fists that looked enormous to me. Finally the trapdoor began to lift again, and Ketil raised his sword in readiness for whatever might appear.

  The first head through was Layla's, and Ketil relaxed. A block of firewood followed her, then Moise, who closed the trapdoor.

  "There," he said to me. "Kneel down and put your chain on the block."

  I got the idea, and knelt. The chain was only about three inches long. When I put it on the block, my wrists were less than three inches
apart. Ketil had gotten up. I looked up at him, and my thought, in Norman, was God, let him be accurate.

  Because the ceiling was low, he got down on his knees. Then he raised the heavy sword as high as the ceiling allowed and swung hard while my eyes squinched shut. There was an impact that jerked my wrists, and my eyes popped open. The chain had been cut and the block half split, and although each wrist still had its iron cuff, my hands were free.

  Ketil was examining his blade where it had chopped through the chain, while Lay la stared at the block from over the edge of her veil. I turned to Moise. "Now I need a Norman hauberk," I told him. "And a sword. Let's see if my dead guard's been discovered yet."

  Tarel:

  I woke up on my side in a dark room, with the first headache of my life-a bad one. I was on a stone floor, with my hands tied behind me, and whatever my ankles were tied with was also attached to my wrist bonds, bending my legs back. I was really immobilized. If I tried to move my feet, it pulled on my arms.

  Someone was there with me. I couldn't see him because he was behind me, but I could hear him breathing. I was pretty sure it wasn't a guard. A guard would have had a lamp lit, and besides, this sounded like someone asleep, and maybe sick or hurt.

  I didn't need a guard anyway, the way I was trussed up.

  There were other sounds too, that came in through the window. At first I could hear people talking. Normans. Then after a few minutes I heard someone call from a little distance, and someone else called back. Then it was quiet, with only a little talking a couple of times, farther away in the courtyard. From what I could hear, they were hunting for someone. I wondered if some of the Varangians had escaped, or possibly Larn. Deneen had said Larn led a charmed life; that he always found a way out of things.

  My fingers found the cord-it felt like twisted cloth- that tied my ankles to my wrists. If I could get that untied… I pulled on it, which drew my legs back farther, until I felt the knot with my fingers. That was the first practical value I'd had from hand-foot art-it makes you flexible. But when I let go of the cord with my hands to explore the knot, my legs wouldn't stay bent that far back, and the knot got away from me.

  Now what? I wondered. There was no one to answer, of course. Whoever was in the room with me was behind me, probably also tied up.

  So I just lay there for a while, waiting for whatever might happen. But that got boring, so I pulled on the cord until my fingers found the knot again. Then I pulled an inch or two farther, until I'd hooked a couple of fingers of my left hand under a more slender cord that was wrapped several times around my ankles. I held on with my left hand then and began to feel of the knot with the fingers of my right.

  It had been pulled up pretty tightly. I've always had strong fingers though; in school there wasn't anyone who could grip me down. Hardly any could even hold their own against me, not even Larn. So I dug and plucked at it, not sure whether I was accomplishing anything or not. After a while, the backs of my shoulders felt like they were going to cramp. But I wasn't willing to let go, because then I'd lose whatever gain I'd made.

  Finally, I could feel the cord give a little through a loop of the knot, and a minute later I'd pulled it free. But the knot was still tied; it had been a double knot, I let go and gave my shoulders a rest, rotating them as much as I could. Then I went through the whole thing again, but this time I knew I could do it, and pretty soon the rest of the knot was untied. My ankles were still tied together, but they weren't tied to my wrists anymore. Straightening my legs was one of the biggest treats of my life.

  Then I just lay there for a minute, listening. I could barely hear someone talking in the courtyard, pretty far away. The guy behind me was still breathing about the same as before.

  Now to get my arms in front of me. I rolled over on my stomach and bent my legs back as far as I could, grabbing my left foot with my left hand, and worked until I'd gotten my hands over my feet. Now the hard part was over; my hands were in front. All I had to do was untie my ankles and I'd be able to get up and move around. Though I wasn't sure what good that would do me; my wrists would still be tied together. But at least it gave me something to do while I was waiting.

  Then I became aware that the breathing behind me had changed. I was pretty sure whoever it was was awake now. I also realized that whoever it was must have heard me moving around on the floor, and probably grunting, while I was getting loose.

  "Are you awake?" I whispered in Norman.

  The reply was in Norse; it was Gunnlag Snorrason! I groped for a moment for the Greek I'd started learning on the Jav. I'd had Moise recite all kinds of Greek stuff, with Evdashian equivalents, into the linguistics program for analysis while Deneen had had us in FTL, getting the fuel decrystallized. Then I had run the

  Greek-Evdashian data base into the learning program, and had had a session with it. But only one, and I hadn't had a chance to practice with it because we'd gotten into other stuff.

  "My hands, feet, not free," I said in Greek. "I try make them free,"

  He murmured something back at me in rapid Greek that I didn't understand at all. "I no understand," I told him. "Only very very slow."

  He muttered something in Norse. I started to work on getting my feet untied. That cord was pulled tighter than the other had been, but after a couple of minutes, it started to give. It didn't take long after that.

  Then I turned around and, kneeling, explored Gunn-lag's bonds. He d been tied the same as I had, but it was easier to work on the knots, now that I had my hands in front of me. When I got his ankles free from his wrists, he gave a big groan of relief and said something in Greek that I recognized as "thank you," with some other words added.

  His legs and body were so thick that I didn't think he'd be able to get his hands around in front, even with my help, so next I started on the knot that tied his wrists together. It was really tough. With my own wrists still tied, I wasn't getting anywhere. Maybe if my hands had been free…

  I straightened my back and knelt there in the dark, thinking. We might not have much more time. They were certain to come by and check on us sooner or later, and it could be any minute. Maybe there was something in the room that I could use, something with a sharp edge, or a point…

  Outside the window, the night seemed less dark now. I decided the moon must have come up. It seemed to come up later and thinner each night. The room was about as dark as before though. I got up, went to the window, and looked out. Fifteen or twenty feet below was a garden. Then I groped my way around the room. I couldn't find any kind of tool, not even any furniture, or anything sharp or rough fastened to the wall.

  That left my teeth. With my eyeteeth, I started to dig at the knots that held my wrists.

  Arno:

  I rode my mount hard. I wanted to catch up with Gilbert's troop before it caught up with the Varangians. The Varangians could be useful to me. I had enjoyed their comradeship, and we had fought well together, side by side.

  It was a close thing. Gilbert's men were in sight of the Varangians when I caught up, and the Varangians, unsuspecting, had halted with their escort to wait for them. Gilbert's marshal, Richard de Sele, led the troop. Another Italian-born Norman. It was clear he did not like my joining them. Nor did he hide his sneer when I arrived on a hunter, carrying neither lance nor shield. I told him I'd talked with Gilbert, and had decided to join him.

  Less than half a furlong from the Varangians, Richard ordered his troop to charge. Spurring their destriers into a gallop, they raised their lances above their shoulders and drove at the surprised Varangians, who for a moment did not know whether to try running, to fight from horseback, or to dismount. I made the question irrelevant. My hunter easily kept pace immediately behind the troop, and I felled them with my stunner almost as quickly as a breath. All but Richard. He glanced back with a look of shock, then swerved to flee. I finished the others, then changed weapons, and with the blast pistol, shot his horse from under him, sending him crashing.

  He got to his feet, dr
awing his sword and limping badly, scarcely twenty yards from the Varangians. I had spared him deliberately to their tender mercy. Their three escorts, who'd drawn away from the Varangians to be aside from the charge, had seen all that had happened. They milled in confusion now. It went against their Norman fiber to flee, yet what they had seen had overawed them. I settled their uncertainty by charging at them. They turned and fled, riding hard.

  It did not suit my plans that they take word to Gilbert, so I spurred after them. Seeing me in pursuit, one turned aside, spurring viciously. I ignored him, my hunter gaining on the other two, and I killed them both with the pistol. Then I stopped and fired two aimed bolts from the blast rifle at the man remaining. The second bolt took the horse from under him. I trotted to where he lay, the dead horse pinning his legs. He cursed me as I jumped down, and with a dagger thrust I released him from his pain and humiliation.

  Then I returned to the Varangians. Their mercy had not sufficed for Richard's life. He lay dead and dismembered by multiple sword blows.

  The sun was a vivid orange-red ball half hidden by the westward mountains as we started back toward Gilbert's castle, myself the leader now. It was nearly night when we stopped to eat from our ration bags, and sleep. The Varangians were mostly indifferent horsemen. It would be unwise to lead them down into the ravine until the moon had risen. What there was of it, for it would be scarce half full tonight.

  Tarel:

  It took more patience than I knew I had, but finally I worked out the knot and got my hands free. I went right to work on Gunnlag's ankle bindings, and I'd just gotten them untied when I heard a metallic sound at the door-someone putting a key in the lock.

  I jumped to the wall, where I'd be behind the door when it opened. It swung inward, letting weak light in from the corridor, and I heard a voice speaking Norman.

  "Only the Varangian chief is here. You must have put the false monk in another room."